A Student Speaks: My Dream to Inspire

When we came back from a mission trip from Africa we were really impacted by the people there. While we were there our country host was talking about dreams, his dream was that he would some day be the president of Kenya. So when we came back from Africa my mom and dad were talking and my mom asked my dad, "What is your dream?" my dad answered "Well my dream is to travel the country in an RV." My mom and dad had had this dream for a while, but they had always planned on doing it when they retired. So we prayed and sought God on it. After 6 months of our house being on the market we finally sold it and packed most of our belongings into a P.O.D.

When we started out we decided to call it the ARK Tour which stands for Acts of Random Kindness. The whole reason for the ARK tour is that we want to inspire families to go out in their community and serve. Currently we are parked in a parking lot at a church called New Vintage Church. We were invited up on stage to share our story, and afterwards many people wanted to meet us and were giving us gifts. We were so amazed how God has blessed us with all the wonderful fellowship. We enjoy serving other people and it is a great blessing to be doing God's work.

I am very passionate about guitar. I have been playing for about 2 1/2 years now, I really enjoy it. I started out learning from a family friend from Georgia. He taught me the basics and really got me fired up about it. Now that we are on the road it is a little more challenging to practice, but I use a website called Jamplay.com that has online lessons. I am also very passionate about drawing. I really enjoy drawing, I am just a beginner, but I have a lot of fun doing it.

Ben is a freshman at The American Academy. He started taking classes at the American Academy at the start of his family's national tour. The American Academy is a proud supporter of Ben and his family's goal of inspiring families to serve in their communities.